Teen Camp happening soon!

Picture from our Teen Camp in 2009

We are excited about our upcoming Teen Camp in Poland from the 17th till the 20th of May! We are expecting God to work in the lives of the youth here in Germany and also in Poland. We will be meeting Pastor Maciej and some Teens from Warsaw, along with some Teens from our church in Krakow. There is such intense warfare against these Teens daily, which is why we ask all of you to please keep this long weekend in your prayers. If you can think for a moment about what it is like for them: very few Godly friends, no encouragement to go forward with God from their school and classmates, and society tells them to be a "free spirit" and experiment with their desires. Of course there is also the overwhelming spirit of atheism here in Berlin. This makes it very difficult for a teenager to make daily decisions for God. 

But we know that God is greater! We know that God has a plan to use these amazing young men and women! We are really looking forward to spending a weekend with the Teens from Heidelberg, Berlin, Warsaw and Krakow. A great opportunity for new friendships, camp fires, games, and times around the Word of God. What a great weekend we have ahead of us! Thank you for your prayers. 

The Desperate Need for Christ in Germany

When speaking about living here as missionaries we are often asked, "Why Germany?" As if to say, "what needs could they possibly have?" Well I can tell you this, there is a tremendous need for Jesus Christ here. Especially Berlin, and any part of former East Germany, for that matter. I have a few statistics to help reveal this need, although it still will not do justice to the desperation and loneliness that is felt so greatly here every day. The percent of committed Christians in Germany is maybe at 3 or 4 percent. Thirty percent belong to a Protestant church nominally. A mere 0.5 percent belong to a free evangelical church. Non-religious people, including atheists and agnostics might make as many as 55%, and are especially numerous in the former East Germany and major metropolitan areas. You really can see the effect of this in the atmosphere of Berlin where just 1.5 percent of people attend a Protestant church. If you add the 0.5 percent of the free evangelical church goers, you end up with just 68,000 church goers out of 3.4 million people. Now to be fair, this does not account for the Roman Catholic Church, which claims 32 percent of the population for its members. But again that is just membership, different from the amount who actually go to church.

According to a poll by Der Spiegel magazine, 45% believe in God, and just 25% believe in Jesus Christ. We experienced this on Saturday as we talked with an older man, about 70 years of age, who was a firm atheist. He was actually laughing as we shared about just the possibility that God exists, as if we were incredibly stupid for not seeing all the signs of nothing, becoming everything that we see today, just through time and chance. As for Jesus Christ, he firmly believed that he never even walked this earth. I took some change out of my pocket and dropped it on the ground. Then I asked him if he were to walk by and see the change lying there, would he assume that the change just "happened" to fall out and land that way? He said, "Of course!" Then I carefully stacked all of the coins, in order, on top of each other and asked him the same question. To my surprise, he said, "Well it still could have happened." So fearful of the responsibility of a relationship with an Almighty God, yet so desperate for that very thing, which is the only thing that could truly satisfy his soul.

As I had mentioned earlier, the state of darkness is far worse in former East Germany, than in the West. It is estimated that more than 70 percent of East Germans—compared with 30 percent of West Germans—know virtually nothing about Christianity. In the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt only 19.7 percent belong to either the Protestant Church or the Roman Catholic Church. This is the state where Martin Luther was born. That is membership, not attendance, which is much less. Next Saturday we will be visiting this area, specifically Wittenberg, where Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses 495 years ago. Perhaps you are reading this and are moved, but dont really know what you can do. Pray. Pray. Pray for the work here in Germany. We want our times of evangelism to be so powerful and effective, the church to increase with the increase of God. Thank you so much for your prayers and your support.

Trip to Heidelberg and Visit From Pastor Gary

We had an encouraging trip to Heidelberg this past weekend. Stephan and Mindy Stein, Fuad, and I left Berlin in a small snow storm and followed the storm 600 kilometers South to Heidelberg. Needless to say that made the normal 6 hour trip longer. I believe it took us about 8 hours, but we made it safely. Thankfully we had a 4 wheel drive SUV with snow tires. It was so great to see the body of Christ both in Heidelberg and Kitzingen. God is so faithful to work in our lives while flooding us with His grace and love, thereby enabling us to grow in that very grace and love. This is what we witnessed in Heidelberg and Kitzingen.

The road conditions....

We met for the weekly Bible Study Thursday night, but not before meeting up with Pastor Gary.

One thought that Pastor Groenewold shared: The loudest place in the world is not a rock concert, but it is when I am alone. The noise of projections and my own thoughts become so loud when I am alone. This is why the Body of Christ is so healthy for me as a believer. However, I can be in the body, but not really submitted, then I am still alone in the midst of the body. Oh to be submitted to the will of God in the Body of Christ!

On Friday we drove 2 hours East, Northeast to Kitzingen. We had a great time in the Word of God that evening with some people that came from Heidelberg and the people that Pastor Petri has been ministering to there in Kitzingen.

Then we had the pleasure of bringing Pastor Gary back to Berlin with us for our service Sunday. What an encouraging time.

Trust and Obey

Success for a missionary is not taking the Gospel to new lands and establishing the Christian church there. That is what God does, and He does it in His way and in His timing. Success for a missionary, as for any Christian, is being obedient to God's will. In Matthew 16:18 it says the Church is built UPON Christ and BY Christ. So often we feel like we must succeed at building the Church, or as a leader/missionary, that we are the reason the Church is or isn't doing well, but we must not get our values mixed up. Christ is the ONLY capable one among us, we are all absolutely nothing without Him. That is why our obedience to His will is so important. God is able to move and work through our obedience, not through our own execution of our ability. Trust and obey.

It's a New Year!

A very belated Happy New Year and Merry Christmas from the Mays!

We were so happy to have (very last minute) gotten the chance to be with our families once again this year for Christmas. This is just a short recap of what's been going on with us the past month, wrapping up the month of December & starting the new year.

About two weeks before Christmas we had our church Christmas party (as mentioned in our last post). We had a concert that the choir put a couple months of practice into, a message, food brought by different women in the church, and a gift exchange. It was a great church family night. We are continually amazed to see these families & single people, Germans & foreigners, all knit together and becoming a body, a real family here in this church.

The Choir Singing

The gift exchange (always a huge hit!)

We then spent our first New Years back in Germany, arriving from the States on New Years Eve. There is NOTHING like New Years in Berlin. We had wondered why we had never been here before. The whole city is setting off fireworks for the duration of the night. They started around 5:00pm when the sun went down and went off and on until midnight when the sky exploded. It felt like we were in a war zone, fireworks going off in every direction near and far. It went on for a solid hour and continued off and on throughout the rest of the night. We were warmly welcomed back by the church here and welcomed in the New Year having dinner with an amazing German family in the church. It's amazing to have so many "homes" all over the world, but such is the body of Christ.

We are really looking forward to 2012 and expecting God for great and new things this year. Here are few things that we have on the horizon this year to be keeping in prayer:

• EuroCon in March. We are really praying that God opens the doors for new people to go that have never gone before. We are praying for financial provisions, bold decisions and open doors.
• Teen/Youth retreat in May. We discovered a long time ago that you have to plan things in advance in Germany. As Americans we tend to be more spontaneous whereas in this country a weekend getaway has been planned at least a year in advance. We had the idea to do a youth getaway in May during the teens school break, we even had a camp but they cancelled on us over Christmas, and now that May is a few months away it is extremely hard to find a second location. We are praying for new ideas and God's perfect place to have this weekend.
• Convention in June. We already have one German family of four planning on coming to Baltimore this year and we are hugely excited. Please keep them in your prayers for details as they book their trip, and for others to come as well.

Lastly, we had an amazing church service this past Sunday. We had a small murmur of translation over the room as the message was being preached. There was a total of 5 languages being spoken. It is so encouraging to watch all of these different counties represented in one small church, witness them receive the message of grace and the finished work, and then interact with them and see the body life that is among us. German, American, Hungarian, Finnish, Lithuanian, Polish, Spanish, Iranian, African (and I know I am missing a few) were all represented on Sunday. It is nothing short of the grace of God that this group of foreigners could find a family in the body of Christ amongst each other, speaking broken English & German and using lots of hand gestures, it's a miracle to watch and be a part of.

Thank you for reading, thank you for your support and your prayers.

Matt & Emily

Weinachtskonzert/Christmas Concert

Please be praying for our annual Christmas party tomorrow, the 10th of December. This year will be a lot of fun, since we are also having a concert. We are asking God to draw our neighbors, friends, and coworkers Saturday night for a great time of fellowship and of course, food. We have always had a good turnout to our annual Christmas party, but we are expecting a lot of new faces this year. Most importantly, we want to experience an exchange of life that is only found in God. Keep this event in your prayers today and tomorrow, no colds or sickness with the choir members. We are starting at 6:00 p.m. (noon, for those Stateside readers). We will post some pictures afterwards.

Thanksgiving Weekend

There is certainly nothing quite like celebrating Thanksgiving overseas. There is no sign of Thanksgiving in any of the stores, finding a turkey and all of the ingredients is nothing short of comical, and everyone that you pass on the streets has no idea that you are celebrating a holiday. But that does not stop us, it just makes it more of an experience! This year we celebrated Thanksgiving in Berlin twice, once with some great friends that God has given us here, another American missionary couple. Then with the Steins and a few teens from our youth group.

We have so much to be thankful for. Our home here, how God has provided for us here, our home church back in the States and our church here in Berlin, the friends that God has given us here, the support of our friends and families back in the States, and of course each other!

Below are some photos from our Thanksgiving weekend.

Matt carving one of the two turkeys. We weren't able to find a large enough turkey at the grocery store so we had to buy two!

My friend Bethany and I with all the dishes we prepared

The spread

The Post-Thanksgiving fullness

Our second Thanksgiving, serving the Pumpkin Pie (yes made in a cake pan!)

Thanksgiving was followed this weekend by decorating the church for Christmas. This Sunday was the first advent (of the four before Christmas). Advent is widely recognized in Germany, and the first advent weekend is when everyone decorates. It's always a fun annual tradition to decorate the church together!

The kids LOVED the decorating

The choir practicing during the decorating for next week's Christmas concert. They sounded great!

Let God Develop Your Reputation

So often we spend so much energy trying to establish a positive reputation for ourselves. Whether it's the way we dress, the way we speak or how we present ourselves, we always seek to "put the best foot forward." We could say it another way, that we want people to see us at our best behavior, never at our worst. Perhaps there is a fear that someone else won't like us, or on a deeper level, won't trust us because they see how we really are. Of course there is nothing wrong with that, but how do we really establish trust in a relationship?

We read in Psalm 130:4 that "there is forgiveness with thee, that you may be feared (trusted)." This is such an amazing verse, especially when we look at the verse before, "If you Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?" If there is anyone that really knows who we really are, or how we really behave, it's God. But He is full of forgiveness. This is where the trust enters into the relationship. Because God has the power to forgive me, I can trust Him. I know that no matter what I do, He will not hold it against me. Forgiveness is a part of God's reputation that enables me to rest in Him, not in my own performance. In order for us to grow in our relationship to Him, there has to be forgiveness given and received. This is the same in our relationships to those around us as well. The trust which we build our relationships upon is only established when we rest in God's forgiveness and allow His reputation to become a part of our lives.

A couple of months ago we met a young man from the Dominican Republic on our outreach to the language school. He saw us talking to people on the corner and asked his friends, "hey, what are they talking about?" They told him that we are Christians talking about Jesus Christ. So he approached us and asked us where our church was and if we really were Christians as his friends had said. The very next Sunday he came to church and has been coming ever since. He has a hunger for the Word, to learn more about God and to trust Him more in his life. It was interesting to see the reputation/testimony that we had there on that street corner of Berlin. God has really established a great testimony there for us. It is great to see what God does through the things that HE establishes.

Continue to keep the church here in your prayers. There has been such a great sense of unity within the body of Christ. There is an exchange of life at our services, which is so encouraging to see and experience. We know that it is a direct result of your prayers, so we thank you and please keep it up.

The New Office and a Visit From Mat LaFlamme

We had an amazing, refreshing time with Mat LaFlamme the past few days. This video is from the Bible Study we held Sunday night at the home of a family in the church, the Wollenbergs. It was so great to have a friend visit us to just hang out and have fun together. We were really encouraged by God through Mat's visit.

There is more to be done, mainly the finishing touches, like new lighting and pictures on the walls, but this gives you an idea of what it will look like.......As promised, the "After" photos from the newly renovated office:

Renovations

This week and last week we have been doing some renovations at the church. We started in the basement, where the kids have Sunday school. New carpet, new paint, and removal of a closet and steps were some of the tasks for the basement. The carpet was the most important, I believe, since the old one was there for ten years and had accumulated quite a lot of mold. The office is getting a totally new look from top to bottom. New furniture (desks, chairs and bookshelves), new flooring (laminate), and new lighting to name a few changes. So here are some before pictures:

As you can see, there was a lot of stuff everywhere...

So everything had to be removed, which was quite a task in itself.

Now the painting could begin...

Then comes the flooring...and by the way, the paint is not pinkish, its a light mocha/tan, it just looks that way in the photos.

That's all that is done for now. We will post more photos when we are finished, I know you all are waiting to see it completed.

Church Harvest Day

We had a great day of fellowship and laughter with the body here yesterday. One of the families in our church who live outside of the city and have a large yard and house, opened their home to the church to have a harvest day. We spent the whole day and most of the night there, it seemed like no body wanted to leave. It's fun to see God really knit these families and people together in the body. Seeing new people drawn in and making friends, seeing German families spending the day together laughing. We were so encouraged by the joy that God has given the body here. And as much as we were tired and sore from the long day, we went to bed with huge smiles on our faces last night. Such a gift to be a part of a Greater Grace church on the foreign field, watch people grow, and enjoy days with lots of laughter like this with them.

Bobbing for apples

The kids had a three legged race

Matt taught the guys (and a few brave girls) how to play football

It doesen't seem to matter what the game, Germans LOVE to compete

This German game is called "Schokolade" you wrap up a bar of chocolate, and the first one to break into it wins. But you can only go at it with a fork and knife and you must wear the hat, the scarf, and the mittens before attempting. Everyone else playing rolls a dice and if you get a six its your turn, and the hat and gloves and scarf are all passed to you. Definitely good for a laugh!

We had dinner over the fire, roasting bratwurst.

A message by the fire on how we choose whether to put on the old man or the new man each day

Everyone by the fire singing songs, laughing and roasting marshmallow's.

Am I desperate for even something bitter?

Just a thought to chew on.....Proverbs 27:7 "The full soul loatheth a honeycomb; but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet." The soul that is filled with God doesn't even desire something sweet. The word picture for loath is to tread on something, walk on it, because there is really no desire for it. It is very easy to say I trust in God, therefore, I should be full. If that trust doesn't extend to every single area of my life, then I am only partially filled. How many times have I tasted something bitter and not even been aware?

If I am hungry for attention, the world's ways of gaining attention will taste sweet to me. If I am hungry for (in need of) love, the world's conditional love will seem sweet to me. If I am hungry for security, the world's fleeting security will seem sweet to me. No matter what area of my life it is, if I don't go to God seeking His fullness, I will become filled with bitterness. Bitterness will then take over until God will not even seem like a good source of fullness.

This is why we read in Hosea 10:12 to "sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy, break up the fallow ground: for it is time to seek the Lord, till He come and rain righteousness upon you." It is time to be filled with God in every area of our lives. Let us let God break up the bitter soil in our hearts, so the Word of God can be sown > watered > grown in our hearts and we become filled with ALL the fullness of God, desiring no bitter thing.

Church Getaway

GEMEINDEFREIZEIT

Yes that is all one word! It means "church free time" and that's exactly what we had this past weekend with our church here in Berlin. About 40 of us piled into trains, vans, taxis and buses to get to Mötzow, a small town about an hour west of Berlin that had a camp ground right on the lake.

Pastor Gary and Kathie came back from the States for a week to be there with us. Pastor Gary spoke some amazing messages on the theme of "the precious blood of Jesus". The messages were really anointed. It was so edifying to see the church desiring to gather around the word and have questions and want to discuss the messages further.

The group had so much fun together, boating, playing volleyball, swimming... it didn't seem to matter what we were doing or how good any of us spoke German, it was the body gathering together and enjoying each other. It means so much to us to stand with the Germans and sing their worship songs in their language with them, to be able have a conversation about the message (in broken German and using ALOT of hand gestures), and to be able to spend time with them sitting by a bonfire and teaching them how to roast marshmallows... God has really blessed us by giving us the privilege of getting to know these people.

Johannes is an awesome German teenager who had a powerful testimony at the end of the week about learning how to not turn to the left or to the right but to go forward with God